INTERVIEW – Cheese, a whole story! 

2024-03-01T04:13:34.449Z

Highlights: The history of cheese begins 10,000 years ago. The benefit of cheese is twofold: it helps preserve milk, and it is a more digestible product for the body. In the Middle Ages, cheese was the monk's food par excellence. The monastic rules which impose work and self-sufficiency fit well with its production. It was later that cheese gained its nobility and its place within the meal. If France did not invent cheese, having a moment of the meal entirely dedicated to this food, the famous cheese platter, is “unique in the world’

Cheese is not just gastronomy, it’s also history! In the company of Éric Birlouez, agricultural engineer and sociologist, Virginie Girod follows the fragrant trail through the ages of this product which is the pride of French tables. The history of cheese begins 10,000 years ago. It is intrinsically linked to that of domestication and breeding, essential to obtain the milk necessary for its manufacture. “It is very recent on the scale of human history” underlines Éric Birlouez. The benefit of cheese is twofold: it helps preserve milk, and it is a more digestible product for the body. However, it is difficult to comment on the taste that these first cheeses might have had. The etymology of the word cheese recalls its manufacturing technique. The Latin word forma designates the mold into which the curdled milk is poured. The product did not have a good press in the Greco-Roman world; it's the food of the Cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey! Cheese, a processed food, nevertheless remains better perceived than raw milk, associated with barbarians. In the Middle Ages, cheese was the monk's food par excellence. The monastic rules which impose work and self-sufficiency fit well with its production. Furthermore, in contrast to meat, “it is a popular food. The monks show their vow of poverty, humility” by eating it. It was later that cheese gained its nobility and its place within the meal. “At the beginning of the 20th century, cheese was commonly eaten with dessert or even after dessert” explains Éric Birlouez. Since the Middle Ages, cheese has been attributed the virtue of “closing the stomach”. Then, it gradually established itself between the main course and the dessert. If France did not invent cheese, having a moment of the meal entirely dedicated to this food, the famous cheese platter, is “unique in the world”!